Laos - Land of the butterflies

Well, i thought since I'm already here I might as well check out atleast one of the surrounding countries. I chose Laos, because most people I met really liked it there. First stop was Vientiane, the capital, which really sucked. I couldn't find any place to eat that served non-dodgy local food (I don't mind local food, but I do like to know what I'm ordering) such as Duck soup with the crushed bones still in it. Not many possibilities to go out at night aswell. I met a Welsh guy and a group of Finns at my guesthouse, and we decided to go on to Vang Vieng quickly. Vang Vieng was really really nice. Lots of places to eat, very chilled out and a very vivid night life. Well, as much as you can call it "nightlife", because in Laos there's a curfew at midnight. It was observed by all the places in town, but down by the river there'd be some bars that stayed open longer. But even there every other day some policeman would come by with a flashlight and tell everyone to go to bed, it was pretty surreal - and annoying.

The view from the hammock down by the river in Vang Vieng

During the day you could rent motorbikes and check out some caves in the vicinity, i especially liked the blue lagoon - really really cold water straight from underground, it was the best and most refreshing swim i had so far in Southeast Asia!

Another option was tubing down the river, you just rented an inner tube and floated down at about 0.5 km/h. There's lots of float-in bars along the river where you can relax in the sun, drink some Laos beer (the only beer they have there, but it's really good, everybody likes it!) or jump into the river in various ways.

The Finns i was staying with were quite hard drinkers (as most Finns are) and would get wasted every single night. Together with the Malaria-medication i took this was quite some heavy lifting for my liver. I noticed that the Finns are not all that different, like everybody says, once you get to know them. I've had quite some fun times with these guys, the best were probably the trip to the Blue Lagoon and the day we hung out on the River Bar and jumped into the water. And I can count to 99 in Finnish now! And I can say "PERRRRRKELE" now, which is the single most important finnish word! ;-)


Laos is the land of butterflies, there's a million around, and they're really beautiful. They're not afraid of humans, so they'd land on you and stay there for a few minutes.

The people are really nice and friendly, it's like a laid-back version of Thailand. Most of the stuff is a bit cheaper there than in Thailand, but some tourist stuff isn't as readily available (Transportation or ATMs) as in Thailand, and going places in general is even more expensive.

(Yes, this is inface a Laotian school bus! Shot from the wrist on the back of a motorbike, pretty good, eh?)